edition authorised by the author, with permission of translator and Wedge Publishing
Foundation (Mr Kerry Hollingsworth, Grand Rapids, MI, USA), as Face to Face with
Justice: a Big Task for Ordinary People - a Christian Political Option for Fiji and the South
Pacific
© 2010 All of Life Redeemed.

The cover of the 1972 edition indicates that the publisher saw an
international potential for this Dutch handbook. "It is a necessary
manual for all those who are striving for a reformation of politics in
Canada, the U.S, England and Australia." This was 27 years after the
end of World War II and the Canadian publishers had perceived a
niche, a potential market, in the larger Dutch migration movement
that also included Australia and New Zealand. In time, this book has
proved fruitful. It has been a stimulus to a group known as Citizens
for Public Justice in Canada with a sister US body, Center for Public
Justice, in Washington. This work has been read with appreciation in
both Australia and New Zealand but it has not resulted in any
comparable Christian public justice movements there.

The re-publication of this book now in the second half 2010, with
the situation in Fiji under its military dictatorship in view, reflects a
similar sense of urgency that brought about its original North
American publication back in 1972. Initially it had been written as
part of the Dutch Anti-Revolutionary Party's reconsideration of its
own political tradition. Here it is published to assist Fiji's citizens in
their reflection on the political task.

In translation, the arguments were re-directed to a general and
global readership, and so the immediate Dutch political context is
left somewhat in the background. However, Goudzwaard's
confrontation and critique of his own tradition can be clearly "over-
heard" in this book even if it is not explicit. It does not become
apparent unless the reader specifically goes looking looking for it.
Consider, as an example, the following statement that explains the
purpose of Chapter 4: Contemporary Christian Social Reflection.

For the delineation of our own conception concerning
Christian social reflection and action, it is important to pay
some attention to developments in other Christian circles.
Here we have in mind the on-going reflection within the World
Council of Churches and the Roman Catholic Church,
especially the pronouncements of the Second Vatican Council
(Christian Political Option p.21).

Note the phrase: "to pay attention to developments in other
Christian circles". What this shows us is that this book was written
with the assumption that a political party's self-appraisal has to
relate to the way others understand the political task and in
particular how other Christians - outside their own immediate
members - can contribute to their own reflection and work.

they defend and also revise their own political stances across the entire gamut of political issues . On the other hand, Christians will not have much of a political ecumenicity if they do not have a well worked out platform and policies to go with it.

of the two most powerful Christian bodies, operative in the
international arena, the Roman Catholic church and the World
Council of Churches; both must have an impact upon how Christians
in various denominational contexts promote distinctivelyCh ri sti an
politics.1

So why are we bothering to re-publish a Fiji version of Big Task
forty years after it first appeared? Here we quote from a recent
article by the Reverend James Bhagwan:

In my travels, as I reflect on what I see, what I experience,
one of the saddest realisation[s] for me is, as our nation
lurches from crisis to crisis, from conflict to conflict, that the
majority of [the] people involved call themselves Christians.
We research, hold meetings and create documents, with
pillars that are supposed to ensure change, peace and
progress whgen we ignore the most important pillar for peace
- the command to love one another as God in Christ loved us2
(James Bhagwan "A Time to Renew Trust" Fiji Times
Wednesday, December 31, 2008.)

James Bhagwan puts his finger on a serious probloem. Is the reason
that Christians are found on all sides in Fiji's current political crisis
because they simply do not believe they can think politically as
Christians? What has loving one another as Christ loved us to do with
politics, let alone resolving the political impasse in which Fiji now
finds itself? The answer given by Big Task is that politics is one of
the God-given ways in which we not only show our love for our
neighbour; it is one of the ways that God calls us to demonstrate our
love for God's ways! This is the way of seeking for justice. That, in
brief, explains why we are re-issuing a Fiji version of this book.

Chapter I, "A Necessary Risk", presents a viewpoint which is
remarkably current 40 years after its initial publication. Indeed the
term "risk" joined to the concept of "structuration" reminds us of the
contribution of Anthony Giddens, one of the architects of "third way"
politics which has been a not altogether successful attempt to

A more recent 2001 Document of the World Council of Churches, the World
Alliance of Reformed Churches, and the Pacific Conference of Churches is "The
Island of Hope: an Alternative to Economic Globalization" is also relevant in our
South Pacific context and is athtt p: // w ww. oi kou me ne. org/ fi le a dmi n/ fi le s/ w cc-